The parents of a teen vandal from Jiangsu province have apologized to the public for the graffiti their son scratched on a stone sculpture in an ancient temple in Egypt, which triggered an online uproar as Internet users dubbed it a “loss of face” for all Chinese people.

A micro blogger found the Chinese characters carved on a cameo at the Luxor Temple, one of Egypt’s most renowned archaeological sites, in early May. The characters say “Ding Jinhao was here”.

The micro blog, posted on Friday night, triggered heated discussion online as the act of vandalism was condemned as being disrespectful to cultural relics.

Ding Jinhao’s parents, who live in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province, apologized for his behavior on Saturday and asked for forgiveness from the public after angry Internet users discovered and revealed the identity of the young man, aged 14, a middle school student in Nanjing.

Israeli police gather after a blast ripped through a bus near the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on Wednesday. At least 21 people were injured, in what an official said was “a terrorist attack.” Text – Global Times, Photo: AFP, 2012

China supports mediation efforts made by Egypt and other Arab nations as well as the League of Arab States (LAS) to ease the current tensions in Gaza, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Wednesday.

“China is paying great attention to the situation in the Gaza Strip,” Hua told reporters.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr over the phone about the situation there, expressing China’s support for Egypt and other Arab states as well as the LAS, she said. Read the rest of this entry »

A commentary by Chinese historian Wang Gungwu draws lessons from the Chinese language through the window on how Chinese see the paradigm of change. Anyone thinking that an Egypt is about to occur in China should read this. By addressing the parallels of an explosion for democracy some have painted between Egypy and China, he says, ‘China is not Egypt, and biantian 变天- making changes to meet Heaven’s wishes – is not something that any Chinese should fear.’

He also adds, ‘In China, the stress has been on concerns for stability. The range of emotions on display in Cairo’s Tahrir – or Liberation – Square was largely downplayed. Not surprisingly, words such as freedom, democracy and revolution were not to be found in Chinese reports.’

One aspect of the reports deserves attention: These noted that China’s media kept its reporting of the events in Cairo low-key and that the word ‘Egypt’ was kept off the Internet. Ever since the middle of last month, when the Tunisian President fell, the Western media has noted what the Chinese press has failed to report.

In China, the stress has been on concerns for stability. The range of emotions on display in Cairo’s Tahrir – or Liberation – Square was largely downplayed. Not surprisingly, words such as freedom, democracy and revolution were not to be found in Chinese reports.

However, in anticipation of President Hosni Mubarak’s departure, Chinese blogs did compare Liberation Square with Tiananmen. The consensus was that China was different from Egypt but that there were lessons to be learnt. Read the rest of this entry »

This article is a little pointed, but it raises some really ‘real’ issues – that China is hardly the singular cohesive entity its public image tries to portray by drawing reference to the recent democratization of Egypt. I found this especially pertinent – ‘Economist Xu Xiaonian warns that China risks being trapped in a stage of crony capitalism, where no official can find the energy to give up a system that so readily transforms their unfettered political power into cash. What is ignored outside China is how the system is under savage attack from the opposite direction.’ Also…

‘The parallels [between China and Egypt] include fast economic growth – exceptionally fast in China’s case – accompanied by widening inequalities, systematic corruption and a crisis of injustice… The joke in all the hype about a ”Beijing Consensus” allegedly encroaching across the planet is there is no consensus even in Beijing.’